Üks huvitav artikkel WSJ poolt:The Wall Street Journal reports Wilbur Ross has purchased $1 billion of beaten-down municipal bonds, a sign that some large investors are snapping up these investments after a recent selloff, taking advantage of the woes of a number of hedge funds that have been forced to sell to try to stay afloat.

Reuters.com tetab sellisest uudisest:Google is expected to receive unconditional approval from European Union regulators next week for its $3.1 bln takeover of DoubleClick, people familiar with the situation said.

"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem." --Theodore I. Rubin

The market is struggling again this morning as margin calls hit Thornburg Mortgage (TMA) and creditors move to seize pledged assets. What is particularly troublesome about this development is that this is a mainstream lender that focused on high-quality jumbo mortgages and not the subprime instruments we have heard so much about.

In addition, there are a number of articles this morning about how illiquidity is infecting a number of other debt markets such as intrabank lending. The underlying problem is that we still have little guidance as to how bad the problem will ultimately be, especially if housing prices continue to decline.

On the wires, we even have Boston Fed Member Rosengren saying that credit problems are now starting to spill-over to "Main Street."

There is no question the economic picture is a gloomy one as the credit markets struggle to come to grips with a host of problems. Some market players keep hoping that the Fed will somehow wave its magic wand and cure these issues, but it appears the market simply has to work through these problems on its own. It is going to take time and it is a mistake to be impatient and to start looking for the market to suddenly improve when we are still trying to fully price in the extent of the debt market issues.

We have a soft start on the way this morning as there is little news to drive buyers. Retail reports are coming in and Wal-Mart (WMT) actually has good numbers. Oil continues its rise and with a host of commodities hitting record highs it is going to be tough to argue that inflation is "well anchored."

Tomorrow is a very important jobs report and I expect that the market will stay pinned down today as it awaits that news. The only real reason to buy at the moment is that we are slightly oversold on a technical basis. On the other hand, with so little positive news on the wires it is going to be tough for the bulls to get much traction as oversold conditions are slowly worked off.

At this juncture I see little reason to do anything other than some short-term trading. The market is showing few signs of forming a solid low and it is clearly going to take a while before things will be healthy enough to generate much upside momentum. The opportunities will come to make money with some longer-term plays, but it is still far too early to be thinking that way. --------------------------------Ülespoole avanevad: